"Love you back," I tell her, and then I hang up.
My gaze focuses on Simone's worried expression. "You get the gist of that?"
She nods hesitantly. "An article is coming out about your identity?"
Letting out a gust of frustrated air, I sit down on the edge of my bed and rub my face with my hands. When I look back to Simone, I shrug. "I don't know. It was a reporter asking about me and said there's an article going to run soon. That's all she knew."
An alert chime sounds from my phone, and I look down to see Etta sent me the reporter's name: Jack Vernicki.
I don't recognize him as a sports writer, but that doesn't mean anything. As of this moment, I don't have a fucking clue about how to handle this.
"What do you think I should do?" I ask Simone.
She comes to the bed and sits down beside me. Hooking one arm across her stomach, she stretches her legs out and crosses one ankle over the other. Her other hand goes to her mouth, where she nibbles on her fingernail while she thinks.
Twisting her neck, she looks at me and asks, "We don't know for sure the reporter knows your true identity, right?"
I shake my head. "But he told Etta it was my chance to get the facts straight."
"Maybe that was just language they use to get people to talk to them," she suggests. "Like sort of a threat. I might write bad or untrue things if you don't talk to me."
"Maybe," I hedge, but I don't think so. It's been bothering me since my trip to the prison. "Arco knows who I am. He's dying. Maybe he leaked it for some notoriety."
Simone shifts on the bed to face me. "Would he do that?"
I shrug. I don't know a damn thing about my father other than he's certifiable. "I remember during and after the trial, he loved the headlines. Would taunt the police and press with revealing other murders, but then after he went to prison, he was quiet as a mouse. Nothing from him in the media."
Pushing up off the bed, I start to pace while I think. I could call the warden to see if he would tell me whether or not Arco had any visitors, but I'm thinking that information may be protected.
A sense of panic hits me as I realize I know nothing. I don't have an ounce of control in this situation.
"I should call the reporter," I say out loud as I turn to Simone. "Don't you think?"
She stands up to face me. "Van...I don't know what to tell you. And I know this is scary as hell and you don't need this right now, but it could be nothing at all. It could be a reporter just taking a stab in the dark. But if you reach out, he's going to know you're worried about something. You've never given an interview before, and the minute you call him, he's going to figure you're hiding something."
Goddammit. That makes total sense and totally hamstrings me.
"And there may not even be an article at all," she continues. "It could be some hack who wants to try to pitch this to a newspaper or something, but he needs you to make it fresh or different from other media articles about your dad. It could be he has nothing unless you respond."
"It would sure help if I knew whether or not Arco talked with anyone," I mutter as I take two steps to come toe to toe with Simone. She steps into me, knowing that all I want is to hug her right now.
"Call the warden then," she suggests "But past that, try not to let it worry you. You need to focus on the game tomorrow."
"You're right," I say with a sigh before pressing my lips to the top of her head.
I think she's definitely right. I just need to let it go and hope for the best.
Chapter 24
Simone
"I just can't get over it," Etta says as she stares at me over her cup of coffee. We decided to just meet for breakfast in the team hotel, as she was staying there too. "I've been despairing for ages that Van would keep himself closed off."
Van had just enough time to introduce us in the lobby before he was running out the door to catch the team bus to the arena for a practice skate. If I thought it would be awkward to have him leave me in the presence of a virtual stranger, I would have been wrong, because I knew a lot about Etta from Van. For the last week since he revealed everything to me, Van has held nothing back about his life. While that initially consisted of the terrible truth about his parents and what he had to deal with, the last several days it had been about the good stuff.
And the good stuff in Van's life consists of one Miss Etta Turner.
Van had a ton of things to say about her. Funny things. Sad things. Happy things. Poignant things.
He told me one night as we lay in bed together that even when Etta was her maddest at him for something stupid he'd done, he never felt an inch of distance from her. Never felt abandoned or like he was a burden to her. For twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, every minute of her life since Van came to live with her, she gave him her entire life and then some.
He'd brought me to tears the night he told me that, but I blinked them away before he could feel them hit his chest where my head was resting.
And while we've done mostly "getting to know you" chitchat during breakfast, as Etta and I linger over more coffee, she apparently feels comfortable enough with me to talk about Van in a very personal way. I haven't been privy to every conversation Van has had with Etta since we've "become a couple," but I have to assume by her statement that she had despaired of him ever having a relationship and that Van has told her that I know everything.
"You're very special, I can tell," Etta says with a smile at me. She punctuates this by putting her cup down and reaching across the table to wrap her fingers around mine. After a slight squeeze, she whispers, "He deserves someone special."
I feel my cheeks pink up over the blatant compliment meant to convey not only Etta's approval of me, but happiness for her adopted son, who clearly did indeed deserve it.
It makes me want to open up to her, so I confess, "I...um...love him."
She doesn't blink in surprise. She doesn't jolt from my words. The corners of her mouth curve higher and her eyes go softer. "It's the one thing I've wanted for Van that I wasn't sure how to help him get. I've tried to do things right, and for the most part, I did. But sometimes I think I sheltered him too much from the harsh realities out there, and that led him to stay in a safe zone. The horrid effect was that he was afraid to love."
"I think you did exactly what you had to do at the time," I tell Etta sincerely.
"So he really told you everything?" she asks as she pulls her hand free of mine so she can push away her breakfast plate to lean on the table with her forearms.
I nod. "I found a shoe box under his bed that had articles. And rather than pushing me away, he decided to just tell it all to me."
"It's a secret he's guarded zealously over the years," Etta murmurs. "I've always respected his right to do so. I was really surprised when he decided to visit Arco."
"Van told me he was worried that he could be like Arco one day. But I didn't think that was really the crux of his angst, and I told him so."
Etta's eyes convey an understanding of where I'm going, so she finishes my thought process. "He admitted to you that he was treated so abominably as a child by being the son of a serial killer he closed himself off to everything. Locked his walls up tight so no one could ever find out the truth and judge him. Make him feel horrible about the people that created him through no choice of his own."
"Yeah," I admit softly. "He was protecting himself."
We share a moment of reflection, both of us lamenting all the things that Van lost as a child, but more important, all the things he's never had as an adult because he was trying to keep his heart safe.
"I think he loves you," Etta says, but I refuse to get my hopes up. I've always known Van is the long game with me. He's not going to be the type who goes falling head over heels the way I have. Rather, he will need me to open the gate and be patient enough for him to walk through when he believes the time is right.
It could be months.
It could be years.
It could be never.
And I am okay with that, because if all I ever have from him is what I have now, it's more than I ever had before. I'll make it work.
I choose my words carefully, though, with Etta. "What I know is that Van makes me very happy right now. But I'm not naive enough to think that it will be smooth sailing. He's got decades of being closed off. And with this reporter calling, it's causing some stress for him. The one thing I can tell you is that I'm in this for the long haul. I have patience. I'm waiting for the shoe to drop, and if and when it does, I'll be ready for it."
"Van says you're stubborn," Etta tells me with a twinkle in her eye. "That you don't back down from a challenge, and I can tell you...our boy is a challenge."
This causes me to laugh, because Van did put up quite a fight to hold me off. Nodding, I tell her, "Like I said...I'm patient. I know how to wear him down."